Holy Palmers Touch
by Nothing is ever black-and-white
Summary: I mean it about the rating. No relation to Romeo & Juliet. Dracula's bride...a wedding, a wedding night and death...A life and love lost to history...


Disclaimer: This is completely not original, nor do I claim to own its characters. It is, however, rather a mix of the novel, the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula and some history about Vlad the Impaler.

A/N: So. This focuses on Dracula's brides. I hate that they are only used in the movie to crawl all over Jonathan. I also hate the whole Mina/Dracula/Elissabetta thing. Here, he actually loses his wife but doesn't try and replace her. This was written mostly because, through all the years he was a vampire, he only had three wives and Lucy following him around, and since he rapes Lucy in the movie I decided it must have something more to it than him merely snacking on you. Of course, if Dracula were mine, he would have no intimacy with Lucy…which is the same as in the novel.

Sorry about any weird typos, I'm really pressed on editing time. Sorry!

I am experimenting with my writing style, so even if you don't like what I've written, could you at least review and tell me if you liked the way I've written it? Oh, and please be aware that this is R for a **REASON**!! But...it's no worse than the movie...

* * *

Wolves. Even here I hear their cries echoing and intertwining with each other. The moon must be full. 

But starlight and misty moons have no meaning, not here. Here, there is only longing skin and hungry eyes. Her hair hangs lose, covering her body in a lustrous cloak that makes her perfectly formed body even more alluring than her thin shift ever could. Consummation is only a matter of time.

This morning, I didn't think she would do. This morning she was demure and still. She said her vows as a dutiful daughter fulfilling a final paternal request; I said mine out of honor. Now, she stands behind me as wife and servant. And she shall serve well.

I turn to her and I can see that she fears me. But, I still wear my wedding finery, complete with sword. When armed, she cannot help but fear me.

I will teach her that she is helpless even when I am unarmed.

I let my sword fall to the floor at me feet. Her eyes follow it, her frame shivers in fear.

I feel a smile pull at my lips. I turn it into a leer.

We both know the power is in my hands, so I don't bother rushing. I prefer to watch my prey held in suspense, hovering at the edge of death. Or, in this case…

I circle her slowly. I can hear her breath coming in almost sobs, but she's doing all she can to stand tall and hide her fear. It's…intoxicating.

I know she hears my steps as I approach the chamber door, but she doesn't turn. Even when the heavy lock clicks, she doesn't look to me. I want to keep her, like a pet. She's pliable.

Even now, I take my time. Speed will come later. For now, she is expecting a lunge at her, or a sudden blow. I will not play into that. No, better to leave her trembling. The time for pain and punishment is not now. And, unless I am mistaken, it will not come in the form she expects.

I stop behind her, close enough that she can feel my breath on the sensitive skin of her cheek. For a moment I wait. Will she speak, will she cry, will she turn? She only stiffens.

One of my hands twists into her hair, stroking slowly, brushing lightly against her shoulder blade and lower back on its journey.

She tremors. More violently than I had thought possible. Still, she will make no sound. My free hand itches to reach around her throat and hear her scream as she falls to her knees on the cold stone floor…

But there is more fun to be had first.

I circle her once more, taking in her inferior height and weight. Indeed, it would be but the work of a moment to sling her down, but there would be no resistance. I want a fight, even though I know I'll win.

So instead, I stand before her and duck my head just enough that ours eyes can meet. Obediently, she raises her head enough to look me full on even when I straighten. Her eyes are clear and frightened, but not terribly so. She's uncomfortable and afraid, but she doesn't know what is frightening her. And so far, I've done nothing in the least threatening, even though it's all startled her.

I understand now. She's not only a virgin; she doesn't know the first thing about being with a man. Doesn't even know it's possible.

I force myself to suppress a snort. Does she think heirs are just delivered in the night by a fairy?

I decide to take it slow. At first. I place my hands on her shoulders and watch her try to hide a flinch. Gently, for now, I guide her backwards, holding her gaze and looking completely unthreatening. But when my steps quicken almost imperceivably, she quickens her pace beyond the necessary, tripping over her hem.

It doesn't matter though; I tighten my grip and hold her upright until her legs are met by the edge of my enormous, maroon silk adorned bed.

Instantly, I've taken a hold of her beneath the arms and lifted her to the bed, laying her head against the deep pillows.

Still fully clothed, even my boots are still on; I swing one leg over her and settle in, sitting squarely on her stomach.

The faint light at the window disappears, I assume the clouds have moved over the moon, but I don't care. Beneath me, I feel her breaths coming quickly, hitching in her throat. This is her first, and I will make it good and long.

In the dark I slide my hands over her, feeling smooth stomach and eighteen year old breasts beneath the thin lace and cloth. I pause, hovering over her when I hear the first true sob. I savor it; backtracking to reproduce it, harder and faster until I can feel her anger nearly override her fear. But I will find news ways to get her to make that sob.

When at last I've tired of the sound, I continue my travels, over shoulders up the outstretched arms to the balled fists. Her hands open beneath mine and our fingers interlace as she grips my hands tightly, looking to me for solace in return for what I've just done to her. She doesn't understand that I've done nothing yet, but I let her cling to my hands anyway.

Now, with our hands joined, I'm stretched over her, not yet fully laying on her.

In the dark, I lower my head to hers, conquering her lips and breaching the gates with my tongue. She's unprepared and unskilled, but soon her tongue responds and I can feel her crying into my mouth. I break away only to run my tongue over her jaw line, tasting the salty tracks of tears.

Now she is crying with abandon, gasping in air and I can feel her pulse pounding through her.

At last, I lower myself, my lips finding her ear, shoulder neck…

Beneath me, she shifts, trying to get away, her hands open and close, trying to find a way to push me off, her chest presses close against mine…but that one instant of shifting her hips against mine have done it and I feel my pants tighten. She feels it too, I can tell by the way she gasps and the way her back arches, pressing her even tighter against me.

This is why I remained clothed. She's new at this; I want her to feel what will happen before it does.

I bump my hips against hers slowly, but she only tries to escape once more.

It seems I will have to part her legs manually.

I pull away the slightest bit and I hear her involuntary gasp of relief, but I know it won't last. I put one of my knees between hers and lean in once more.

She's fighting me hard now, but there's nothing she can do. The shift rips with an enticing eagerness and I slid my knee up. She cannot stop me.

When I'm satisfied she knows what's expected, I lower myself once more, and this time she feels less safe, less willing to let me crawl over her. Her hips thrust upward, trying to dislodge me the only way she can, but she achieves the opposite and I bump back. This time she understands what was meant to have happened before and a strangled broken cry escapes her throat.

I pull away instantly, I've achieved all I wanted for now. Her knees clack back together instantly and her sobs continue even though she doesn't try to move again.

Little does she know that was only the preliminaries.

Her hands are still in mine, although limp now. With fingers still interlaced, I settle now for sitting as I had when we began, letting her calm her breathing but not escape. I bring her hands up, kissing her trembling fingers in reassurance before putting them to the buttons at my throat.

She understands, and before I've even fully released her fingers they regain a bit of their dexterity and my skin is slowly being exposed to the night air.

The pale light filters back in and while my thumbs caress her collarbones I watch her face. She's pale in the light; her hair disheveled and loose strands float around her head. Her eyes look dark and wet, but in her face now is less fear than I imagined and a strange sort of fascination. Like all women, she wants to know what sort of man I am, and like a virgin she wants to know what a man is.

I have shown her what she is; now it is her turn to discover something.

Her hands are slow and I do not try to hurry her, but I will not remain idle. She's reached mid-chest and I can feel her slowing, unwilling to go lower and yet longing to see more. I will not show such discretion.

The rip in her clothing ends just below where the buttons begin and as she works down I will work up. My fingers brush against her as I take the cloth in my hands, and I feel her shudder and watch as tears leap to her eyes once more though they do not fall.

Slowly, I rip the thin cloth and I can feel her fingers tremble too much to unfasten the buttons.

At her stomach the fastenings of her own cloths begin, and it is there that I stop.

Once more I take her hands in mine, guiding her down the shirt, aiding her when necessary. Her hands falter once more at my waist and I take pity on her, placing her hands on my now bare chest. There they stay unwillingly as my fingers toy with her buttons.

The air around us is cold, and I know she shivers with a mixture of chill, fear and excitement. I watch the fine goose bumps play over her skin as more and more is exposed, my fingers inching ever upwards. Slowly. Deliberately.

My work done, I leave the cloth in place, allowing it to part only as far as it would naturally. Just as my shirt still clothes my back, she is still covered. Her hands have barely moved from where I myself put them, but I will force her to know my body as well as I will know hers. Without warning, I run my tongue from navel to chin, tasting her, causing her to gasp and shake and cling to my shoulders.

Straitening, I let my hands roam her sides, tickling her just enough to show that I am waiting for her.

Timidly, her hands move, feeling muscle and warm skin. I sit almost completely still watching, feeling, waiting. Soon her fingers find scars - huge and taut - splayed over my shoulders, chest and back…

Battle wounds.

Her fingers play over them gently, questioningly.

She looks up from my pale skin only to meet my gaze and blush, her lips already half forming a question, but I slide a cool finger over her mouth, silencing her. I do not wish to hear her voice. She thinks I wish not to think about the pain of wars past. I let her have her fantasy.

The next part I will teach her by example. My hands still curved around her sides, I slide them upward, now entering areas still covered by her opened shift. She seems startled to feel herself exposed, surprised by the feeling of her bare body against the night air. She looks at me, questioning.

In answer I only stare back.

Now it is up to her. I will wait, tracing patterns across her stomach, letting my hands wander as they please until she does her part.

But she gives me no chance. She has learnt quickly and the frigid breeze has only made her long once more for my warmth. Her hands shake as she slides my sleeves over my shoulders, trying not to touch my skin. As if I would burn her. My shirt falls in a heap by the bed, pooling like moonlight.

She closes her eyes tight now and her legs open wide, wider than I had done before. Beneath me her body goes rigid, as though she hopes I will do what she expects and she will try her best to be elsewhere while it happens.

Deep inside me, I feel the urge to throw her from the bed and into the hall, letting my men trail their hands and eyes over her while each has his turn one by one. She will stay until all one hundred eighteen have had their fill, myself included. She will scream and cry and bleed.

But then I feel her hand find mine, pulling it from her side only to lace her fingers through and grasp tight. In prayer and fear and unbridled excitement that she fears almost as much as she fears what will happen next. She wants this, and it scares her.

I resist the urge to rub my thumb soothingly over the back of her hand and instead lay down against her as she stiffens further. But I go slowly, gently. I've never taken my time before. I enjoy kissing her, I've found, and I like the way her tears taste in mouth.

She's crying again, although I don't know why. So far, we've merely bumped hips, nothing more.

Were this like usual, by now I'd have made her a mother twice over, but I let her feel that I won't hurt her. With my whores, even with the noble women and other virgins, I've only bothered to rip at their dresses until I had what I wanted, only bothered with my own clothes until I could do what I wanted and only bothered with their mouths so that I could bite their lips and hear their cries, taste their blood…

But tonight I will stay clothed, at least as far as I am, unless she of her own volition ventures lower. Besides, after tonight her body will know what to do and there's always tomorrow to make our marriage true. Tonight she shall stay as pure as she can despite her nudity.

Hours latter, the wolves howl once more and in her sleep she pulls closer into my arms, her gown forgotten and our legs tangled. The blankets are mounded around us, over us, under us, warming us. She draws nearer not for warmth but for security.

Our hands are still intertwined. She would not loose her hold throughout my teachings, and I found I did not want her to.

I feel sleep pulling at me. Though I did not do what I set out to this night, she was a quick learner indeed and even in learning she has tired me. In the morning I shall try again, and I know she will neither release my hand nor scream. I can feel that her body will be eager and ready, even if her head is screaming that she should hate me.

She is my princess to with what I will. I don't know how she earned my love as well.

* * *

This morning the news came. The message was simple. It's begun. You are wanted. 

I looked up, past the kneeling warrior to the far side of the room where she was just entering. I know she heard.

Her face pales and one hand flutters out for support, catching hold of a wall. Something within me stirs and I rise, ignoring both kneeling man and my army who now await orders.

After a year of marriage, I find I love her still, deeply and unfalteringly. I loathe nothing more than to see her pained, I fear nothing more than to lose her. But weeks past I saw her slow to wake in the morning, her eyes heavy with sleep her limbs weighted with something I cannot fight away for her. Not long ago she near to fainted beside me as we descended the front stairs to the carriage that waited to carry us over the pass.

I caught her, held her against me and noticed for the first time how thin she was now, how pale. Her breath was strange to my ears, light but not regular. I feared for the first time that I might injure her in touching her. It was terrifying feeling her so small in my arms and a burning started up behind my eyes that I could not blink away.

Her hand slid weakly over mine as she sank into me. It was something we did now, when we needed comfort. Needed each other. Tried to escape our own pains in the company of the other. Wanted to show our love. And in bed.

The simplicity of it crushed me. Pain she was trying to escape. But my heart lightened a bit to se her cheeks dry. She has not cried since that night.

I carried her up the stairs then, up to that big maroon bed, and let her sleep. Held her hand through the fevered dreams that were as terrifying to witness as they were to have.

Today, I found my feet drawn to her. I was causing her pain and I could do nothing to stop it.

I replaced the wall as her system of support, though I could barely feel her weight against me. Her eyes were wet and large with tears but she fought them back valiantly. "Vlad…Vladimir, when will you be home?" She asked me, her voice heavy with fear.

"When God wills it."

Our neighbor to the east, Ivan, had never come home. His wife died alone. And I can promise her no better.

"Be safe."

The last thing I had of her before ridding away at the head of my train of men was the feel of her small fingers sliding out of mine.

She knows as well as I what I will do. She knows how Castle Dracula was built; she knows why I am called Vlad Tepes. Vlad the Impaler. She knows that I spent years in the hands of my enemies, under the threat of execution, watching as my younger brother went to bed with that Turkish pig of a sultan…

She knows the scars they gave. She knows I will kill them.

I make a forest of their bodies as far as I can see around myself. The spears poking skyward from anus to head. My prey hung from the trees I've made to show my prowess.

Be Safe.

I tried. I tried so hard to come back to her in one piece. But warfare…she knows. She's seen those scars as well. I've added to that collection now.

She's never seen the wounds that make the scars.

She will know now.

I ride back to her, my men trailing behind, all of us hurt in some way, but we will take no time to stop and heal ourselves. My dreams plague me, even awake. I know not weather they are a result of the great fissure that slices deep into my side or the fever it brings, but I cannot bear to have her lying dead in that room, alone and unwept. Let my blood drip and my men die, I must be there. If I have to, I will paint my journey home across the labyrinth of the world with my own blood for the people to see. Vlad the Impaler has a heart after all.

I know the road up this mountain as well as I know my name, I know it's turns and its dangers, but I remember passing none of them. I know only that that imposing shadow before me can be nothing if it is not my home.

Around me I feel the hands of well meaning servants, pulling at my legs, my horses head, lowering me. The fire bursts anew within me and their voices turn into one endless scream of nothing, nothing.

Where is she, I want her here with me, where is she, I've come back. By the grace of God I'm home.

At the door I feel her beside me, but there is a mist and I cannot see her. There is the sob I know so well, that dry sound she makes when words fail and she wants to hide her tears. There is the warmth of her body as she presses close to me, her voice whispering prayers as we make that journey, that long hellish journey, up stairs that have never before seemed demonic. There is her hand in mine and I grip it tight, wanting to keep her with me forever.

The bed is beneath me now, the servants steaming in and out endlessly. Uselessly. Someone - She! – Unbinds my armor…my bloodied sash and long failed poultice…everything. The endless scream is louder, terrifying. It's my own voice.

I force myself to put all my strength into not crushing her hands in mine.

When my eyes opened once more, she lay beside sleeping fitfully, her face stained by tears and her delicate hands all but dwarfed by my own. I wanted nothing more in the world than to pull her into my arms and hold her close, make her forget her tears and make her smile. But my body is bound tight with bandages and even the effort of calling her name and brushing a stay hair from her cheek sends the fire of familiar pain racing through me once more.

But it was worth it to see her eyes open and feel her arms wrap round my neck. It was worth it.

She looked pinker than when I left her, felt more real against me now, more like the girl I married. I loved her.

But as I grew stronger, winter fell once more on the land, and it fell harsher than it ever had in our lifetimes. I was well enough now to leave that room, but I would not.

She had not left my side, and I would not leave hers. I would not lose her.

But it was like my dreams. She lay like a corpse, barely breathing. I could do nothing.

Perhaps, I thought, perhaps it is the devil that is trying to take her from me. Perhaps it is he. I will drive him away from her.

For a day, a day I cannot forget despite the centuries through which I've tried, I made the journey down the mountain through the snow to the little church. I begged the monks, the priests, even the parishioners. I prayed. I brought a priest back with me.

But he went to her, prayed over her…and when he came to me, he asked if he should stay to preside over her funeral. If it was the devil, there was no more he or the Pope himself could but give her the funeral that all good Christians deserve.

I did not send him away. It would be an ill omen to send a clergy man away in anger.

I sat with her long into the night, holding her close as the chill winds of her mind tormented her. Close to the middle of the night, she pushed me from her, screaming in fear. Screaming.

I could not leave her. I could not stay.

I went out, with out my cloak, to yell at the sky and the stars and the clouds. To yell at God. What had I done wrong? Had I not killed the Turks, the ones who were not his children? Had I not done my duty as a crusader?

Would he really take my angel from me?

He did not answer.

But if the church could not rid her of her demons, could the Devil? Could he succeed where light had failed?

I asked. He answered. If I would serve him instead, I could live with her for eternity. I could have her by my side as healthy as the day we met and wed. We would be together. Forever.

He changed me. He explained it. I had only to go back in and change her as well before God above took her away to hide her selfishly in heaven without me.

Like that night now long ago, I sat over her but it was I who was now frightened. His words were still fresh in my mind as I did what he asked.

Her neck was warm against my lips, her pulse slow and deep within. My teeth were sharp now, long and thin like the spears I'm known for. Her skin parted under the fangs like a ripe fruit, the juice filling my mouth.

She made a noise, the same little noise she made the first morning we awoke in each others arms. Joy. I realized that just like then, our hands were joined.

I awoke in the morning thinking I'd dreamt the strangest thing but when I turned to her I found she was dead, are palms just touching. In her last moments, she must have reached for me, reality and dream blending.

I could not watch them lower her into the ground. I could not watch her be taken from me. I felt as though I'd been impaled on one of my own weapons.

I would cause this pain to others. Now. I had to. I couldn't let myself think of what they were so piously planting in the chapel beneath my castle. Surely there were nobles yet to be punished. Surely.

I found two. Two couples in fact.

I chained them, the men and women separately.

The men…one at a time I impaled them. It's a slow process. It takes hours for death to come. When both were slowly being transfixed, I showed them what whores they had married. How dare they love them as I had loved her when they were so unworthy.

There were neck fetters, made to link one slave to the next down the line, but I improvised. One around the neck, the other around the stake. I made them get on all fours like dogs and used them. Like the animals they are.

I left them there, chained, naked, beaten. Left them to freeze to death…the men run through as surly as the women were although the implements were far different.

That night, alone in my bed now, I dreamt again that I went to them and, finding then almost blue and curled in snow that was red with blood, I used them violently once more and then drained their bodies.

I dreamed their husbands were not yet dead. I dreamed I felt their eyes glaze over even as they watched me walk away once more, their wives moaning in cold just as they had moaned with pleasure only moments before. I dreamed they thought about how they'd never heard them make that sound in all their married years.

I dreamed and I woke.

In the morning, I heard that an animal had attacked the women I'd tortured yesterday and that the whole of the castle had heard them crying out but when they'd come to seek me out for advice I was not in my room.

I told them I'd gone to the cemetery. And I must have, because that is where I awoke.

But I had them burry the bodies beneath the castle anyway.

The next year, my most trusted warrior stabbed me from behind. The Turks will stop at nothing; even treachery is acceptable to them.

The night after they buried me, I awoke once more, lifting the lid open above me. The chapel was dark and dank, but it was familiar. I knew my path even in the dark and soon found myself by her grave.

She was there. She was there, just beneath that oaken lid.

My love.

I could not bear to have her under ground, so when the priest had left, I pulled it up and placed it here. That day I opened it and gave her thin lips one last kiss. Since then I've let her lie in peace. I wish not to see what death has done to her.

But I still live.

Did not my dream Devil promise such?

I open the lid of her coffin. She lies there as perfect and as lustrous as she ever was, as though death has only heightened her beauty. She wakes to my touch.

My moonlight goddess.

The other two, the two dark haired harlots, come to my silent call, destined forever to be second to my Lady. Her handmaidens in death.

But they are merely shadows; it is she I will love, even after the humanity is gone from this body.

It is she who races through the night with me, our feet pounding the earth, our fur rippling in the wind, singing our joy to the moon. We sit at the edges of the cliffs and sing our eternal love to the village far below. Our paws laid one atop the other.

Our cries echo and intertwine with each other, as our bodies once did for the first time on a night much like this. Above us, the moon is full.


End file.
